Books to read before you die
There are always so many books I want to read but every time I finally find some time I’ve forgotton all about them again. To help you select the next must-read we’ve compiled a list of must-read-lists. Put them on your quillp-wishlist and get even better suggestions of must-read books directly from your friends by browsing their libraries on quillp.
Here we go with the lists - in no particular order:
- All-time 100 novels: TIME magazine critics Lev Grossman’s and Richard Lacayo’s picks of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present
- 100 best novels from the editorial board of Modern Library with links to their New York Times reviews
- 110 best books - the perfect library according to the Telegraph, accompanied by loooong discussion thread of readers on the missing books
- Top 200 - BBC’s Big Read as nominated by 750k UK readers
- Top 100 books of all time by the Guardian - determined from the vote by 100 noted writers from 54 countries
- 1001 books you must read before you die - the full list taken from the book
- [German] Marcel Reich-Ranickis Kanon der deutschen Literatur - gegliedert nach Gedichten, Dramen, Erzählungen und Romanen
- [German] 100 Bücher des Jahrhunderts
Guess a couple of lifes are needed to read all of them before I die. What are your favorite-definitely-not-to-miss-books?
Update [August 18, 2008]: Another must-read list for all fans of comics - thanks to Alexander over at deutsche-startups.de for this one:
Tags: books, lists, reading, recommendations
Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 20:45 and is filed under books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.











July 13th, 2008 at 1:12
Thanks for this list of lists.
donstuff.wordpress.com
July 24th, 2008 at 11:03
Dienstags bei Morrie - aber das mit dem sterben hier im Titel nicht persönlich nehmen. Passt aber sehr gut. LG Julia
April 17th, 2009 at 19:55
with a reading habit that i am pretty proud of, your list suddenly made me feel quite un-read. And thats the closest i could get to describing the feeling
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:17
@vikram: Guess one needs a few more lifes for that…
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:09
23 years of my life have elapsed, and I have read only five of the above mentioned books.
February 1st, 2010 at 16:44
The first two lists, I only have a small handful, but the BBC list I have a good chunk of them, maybe I should start there…. I didn’t get through the rest, I’m feeling overwhelmed. That and the 100 other books in my library that I haven’t started yet.
February 7th, 2010 at 19:29
You should read twilight epic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:>
May 24th, 2010 at 7:50
I’m just glad that out of all those pages, the Kite Runner received only one brief mention in one comment. Terrible book, and belongs nowhere near these lists,
June 2nd, 2010 at 19:47
Hilarious that Roli tries to squeeze in the twilight series among Hemingway, Tolstoy, Woolf, etc. Probably thinks Da Vinci code is the next greatest piece of literature…
September 2nd, 2010 at 13:03
@Phil,
You have got to be kidding me.
@Eric,
LOL! true that.